A body has been found hours after a Danish inventor charged with killing a journalist in his home-made submarine told a court she died on board, police said.

A headless female torso was found yesterday by a passing cyclist in the water's edge in Copenhagen.

Peter Madsen told a court that Swedish journalist Kim Wall had died in an accident and he had buried her at sea, changing his earlier statement he dropped her off alive in Copenhagen.

The inventor admitted the missing journalist died when his homemade submarine sank before he buried her body in a bay near Copenhagen.

Speaking in a press conference, police said it was too early to identify the body that has been found.

"It is clear that the police, like the media and everybody else, is speculating whether this female body is Kim Wall, but it is way too soon to tell," Copenhagen police spokesman Jens Moller said.

Madsen pictured after arriving back to shore (Image: Rex Features)

Kim Wall boarded the submarine to write a story about the Danish inventor (Image: AFP)

The body had been sent for forensic analysis while divers continued to search the area where it was found, Moller added.

Madsen, 46, was arrested in connection with the disappearance of Kim Wall, 30.

He was then charged with the manslaughter of Wall who has been missing since he took her out to sea in his 17-metre submarine on August 10, but he denies the charge.

Danish and Swedish maritime authorities are using divers, sonar and helicopters in the continued search for the body in Koge Bay, south of the city, and in the Oresund Strait between the two countries.

Officers say Madsen had given several different accounts of what happened, reports Mail Online .

At the same time he claimed to have dropped Miss Wall off, Madsen sent a text to a friend claiming Miss Wall had left the vessel and he was cancelling a planned trip on the submarine.

When the same friend asked him why Miss Wall had been dropped off, he did not reply.

He was arrested in manslaughter charges before a judge ordered he be held in custody.

He's charged with having killed Miss Wall 'in an unknown way and in an unknown place sometime after 5pm on Thursday.'

The 40-ton, 18-meter long UC3 Nautilus submarine, one of three built by Madsen, was found by divers under 7m (24ft) of water, though they were unable to enter it safely.

The 40-ton vessel pictured after being hauled back to shore (Image: Peter Madsen)

Salvage ship, the Vina, raised the sub from the sea bed close to Copenhagen's south island of Dragoer and brought it back to shore for inspection.

Kristian Isbak, who had responded to the Navy's call to help locate the ship, sailed out immediately on Friday and saw Madsen standing wearing his trademark military fatigues in the submarine's tower while it was still afloat.